It is sometimes said that female genital mutilation (FGM), widely practised by Muslims, has nothing to do with Islam, and that it is a custom which predates Islam. While FGM certainly is a custom that does predate at least Christianity and Islam, and possibly Judaism, it was made a part of one Sunni schools of Sharia law – namely the Shafi'i School. FGM is, thus, very much a part of Islam, because the Shafi'i is the dominant school of Sharia in a number of mostly Muslim countries, and is the second most popular Sunni school overall after the Hanafi.

This 2010 American medical journal article explains that the Shafi'i school says FGM is obligatory. And that is partly why female circumcision is widely practiced in Egypt, where the Shafi'i school is dominant in the North, as Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi explained in this 2011 American Spectator article.

I said "partly" in the last sentence, because FGM is also a custom that dates back to the time of pharaohs and some non-Muslim communities also practise it.

This 2007 salon.com article points out that over 95% of Egyptian women are subjected to FGM.

The Shafi'i school's support for FGM is also why an imam in Kurdistan, where the Shafi'i school is dominant, said in a 2011 sermon that mutilating women's genitals was obligatory.

And he was isolated extremist imam, because, according to this 2005 "Irish Times" article, more than 60% of Kurdish women are subjected to FGM.

So, as Muslims of all Schools all over the world increasing turn away from liberalism and adopts Islamic ways and governance – for example in Turkey, which has a large Kurdish minority, Egypt, and the Gaza strip – there will undoubtedly be a revival of FGM among Shafi'i followers of Islam, which will subject increasing number of women to this horrible practise.

And as the number of Muslims multiplies in the West with higher incidents of FGM among Muslims of the West, many Westerners think that it is racist or unfair to condemn even such horror customs, when practiced by non-white peoples. And to soften the opposition to FGM in the West, this 2010 "New York Times" article even points that the American Academy of Pediatrics are now demanding that American doctors should be legally allowed to practice a kind of genital pricking, which, they think, will persuade Muslim parents not to take their daughters abroad to perform FGM upon them.

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